Septic Tank Service Revenue Benchmark

Average Septic Tank Service Revenue per Year 2022 Economic Census

The 2022 Economic Census counts every septic tank and related service business with paid employees, including septic pumping, cesspool cleaning and portable toilet rental, and publishes their combined annual receipts. Dividing that total by the number of businesses gives the average annual revenue per employer establishment shown below.

≈$1,583,000 /year

Average annual gross revenue per employer establishment

How this is calculated: about $6.3 billion in combined annual receipts divided by 3,991 employer establishments works out to an average annual revenue of $1,583,000 per employer establishment.

Scope: Septic Tank and Related Services, NAICS 562991. The category covers septic tank pumping and cleaning, cesspool cleaning and related services, including portable toilet rental. Plumbing contractors and waste collection companies are counted in separate categories. Classified separately in group 5629: 562910 Remediation Services; 562920 Materials Recovery Facilities; 562998 All Other Miscellaneous Waste Management Services. Nothing outside that code is counted on this page.

Source US Census Bureau, 2022 Economic Census, Summary Statistics (ECNBASIC): ESTAB, RCPTOT and PAYANN by NAICS · Vintage 2022 Economic Census · Calculation BusinessNES · Accessed September 2026

Employer Establishments at Year Five Smaller cohort

Remediation and other waste management services, NAICS 5629, the 2018 starting count compared with the count of five-year-old establishments in 2023.

Across the 2014 to 2018 cohorts, five-year results ranged from 64.9 to 68.5 percent. This benchmark covers Remediation and other waste management services, NAICS 5629, as a whole, and this category accounts for 3,991 of the 12,892 employer establishments in it. A count by age is not a survival rate, because the figures compare two headcounts rather than follow one set of businesses.

Payroll as a Share of Revenue Official data

Payroll divided by receipts, both as published for the same year.

Payroll share of receipts, Septic Tank and Related Services, United States, 2022 Economic Census.

Approximately 28.0 percent of every revenue dollar goes to annual payroll, a modest share because vacuum trucks, fuel, disposal fees and equipment take a large part of every invoice alongside the technician's time.

Payroll here excludes benefits, employer taxes and owner compensation, and in a trade where the owner often drives a truck, the owner's own routes produce revenue that appears nowhere in the payroll figure.

Business Scale and Ownership Structure Official data

How large the average establishment is, and whether the population is independent operators or multi-site companies.

Scale and ownership, Septic Tank and Related Services, United States, 2022 Economic Census.

The average establishment employed about 9.3 people, and the industry counted 1.0 employer establishments per firm. A service of that size runs a few trucks with drivers and an office, often with the owner in the field, and the establishments per firm figure shows a trade of independent single-location companies.

These are arithmetic industry averages. They state the size of the average establishment and show that multi-establishment ownership exists. They do not show the distribution of business sizes and they do not measure market concentration.

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Data Source Notice

This product uses the Census Bureau Data API but is not endorsed or certified by the Census Bureau.

Figures above are from the 2022 Economic Census reference year, released by the Census Bureau in 2024 and 2025; markets have moved since.

Questions Worth Asking BusinessNES analysis

Septic Tank Service: what trucks, disposal and rural housing do to an average revenue figure.

Before you rely on this benchmark

• Pumping, installation or portable toilets? Routine pumping brings repeat customers on a multi-year cycle, system repairs and inspections bring larger tickets, and portable toilet rental brings recurring event and construction revenue with its own fleet. The service mix behind a revenue figure varies from company to company.
• Where does the waste go? Pumped waste must be hauled to a treatment plant or approved disposal site that charges by the gallon, and distance to disposal sets the cost of every job. Disposal fees are a defining cost that the benchmark does not show.
• What do the trucks cost? Vacuum trucks are expensive, hard-working vehicles that need pumps, tanks and constant maintenance, and a company's capacity is its truck count. Fleet financing and upkeep sit entirely outside a revenue total.
• Which rules govern the trade? Pumper licensing, disposal permits, inspection requirements for property sales and rules on system installation come from state and local authorities and vary by jurisdiction. Compliance and permitting vary widely and shape what a service can offer in its area.
• How local is the market? Septic systems serve homes beyond municipal sewers, so demand follows rural and exurban housing, and a company's territory is limited by how far a truck can profitably drive. Local housing patterns matter more than any national average.
• How much is emergency work? Backups and failures arrive without notice, often on weekends, and emergency rates pay well but strain scheduling, while routine pumping fills the calendar at lower prices. The balance between the two decides how a service staffs.